David Greenfield, Control Engineering editorial director, has launched his coverage of
sustainable/efficient technologies and products via Twitter. You can follow his posts
at www.twitter.com/djgreenfield.
"For those interested in keeping up with my reports on sustainability and energy
efficiency-as well as other sources of information on these topics-my updates on Twitter
will make it easy to keep up with the latest news and insights that I run across," said
Greenfield. "I pore over sustainable, efficiency-centered information on a daily basis,
so connecting interested followers to the best of it via Twitter seemed like an
obvious-and helpful-resource to provide."
Greenfield is also the admin of the "Automation & Control" group on Facebook which,
since its launch last January, has attracted over 2,000 members. To access the Facebook
group, create a free account at www.facebook.com, and then follow this direct link
to the group.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
World's First Wind Powered Theatre
I drove down to Champaign Friday night during the storm to pick up my two of my sons. The worst of the storm was to come several hours later with large hail and flash floods, but that is another story. While on route 47 in Gibson City I caught the sight of a spinning cage out of the corner of my eye. I turned back to investigate and after turning into the Harvest Moon Twin Drive In I found myself standing in a light rain staring at the power source of the World's First Wind powered Theatre! Here was a Skystream 3.7, 1.8kW windmill going at full tilt, beside it spinning in a blur was a 1.2kW Windspire. This was a very impressive sight!
http://www.angelwindenergy.com/
Visiting the the theatre website, I found that they just had a ribbon cutting on May 2nd for the installation and have some nice pictures, but they don't capture the dynamics seen in my cell phone pictures. http://www.harvestmoondrivein.com/
Next time you travel down on 47, make sure you check out this very Green wind powered Drive-in.
Brian
Monday, May 11, 2009
The following is posted on behalf of Wendy Mouche presenting a possible challenge for a club project at the Ledermann Science Center:
I rode an “Energy bike” at the Conservation Foundation/Green Earth Institute’s Fair on Sunday, May 3rd att the booth for a DuPage NGO called “SCARCE” Learned a lot because:
The State of Ohio also has this Energy Bike, which "provides an opportunity to demonstrate concepts of energy with a bicycle that is equipped with a generator and attached to an electrical board. The Energy Bike generates electricity to power a variety of light bulbs and small appliances and is one of the most successful teaching tools available .It allows the rider to sense their energy being transformed and trace the energy flow back to the sun. The rider can see how energy changes forms, feel the energy, hear the explanations of energy transformation and understand the measurements of energy - Volts, Amps, Watts” (http://www.ohioenergy.org/energybike.html).
Ohio’s bike and electrical board looks like a copy of the SCARCE setup.
Interesting for teachers: Ohio has a Solar School Curriculum (http://www.ohioenergy.org/energybike.html) with a Teacher Resource Guide that “provides activities and lesson plans that are correlated to Ohio’s Academic Standards for the following: Measurement; Patterns, Functions and Algebra; Data Analysis and Probability; Number, Number Sense and Operations; Mathematical Processes; Physical Sciences; Science and Technology; Scientific Inquiry; Scientific Ways of Knowing; Science and Technology and Earth and Space Stations. (http://www.ohioenergy.org/Solar%20Curriculum/2Introduction.pdf)
Themes: There are 4 public rooms/areas inside LSEC devoted to hands on High Energy Physics activities based on these themes: Accelerators, Detectors, Methods (how data is analyzed) and Ideas.
The kids really get a kick out of an Accelerator room activity in which they hand crank a bike wheel to faster and faster rpms in order to light up “quarks” attached to the rotating wheel.
Perhaps the challenge is this: Design a hands-on activity incorporating both alternatively generated power and human generated power to complement the above 4 themes.
I rode an “Energy bike” at the Conservation Foundation/Green Earth Institute’s Fair on Sunday, May 3rd att the booth for a DuPage NGO called “SCARCE” Learned a lot because:
- It used a familiar object to make power (bike) and,
- Unlike the power from a wall socket, I could control power output with legs and get feedback from the electrical board.
The State of Ohio also has this Energy Bike, which "provides an opportunity to demonstrate concepts of energy with a bicycle that is equipped with a generator and attached to an electrical board. The Energy Bike generates electricity to power a variety of light bulbs and small appliances and is one of the most successful teaching tools available .It allows the rider to sense their energy being transformed and trace the energy flow back to the sun. The rider can see how energy changes forms, feel the energy, hear the explanations of energy transformation and understand the measurements of energy - Volts, Amps, Watts” (http://www.ohioenergy.org/energybike.html).
Ohio’s bike and electrical board looks like a copy of the SCARCE setup.
Interesting for teachers: Ohio has a Solar School Curriculum (http://www.ohioenergy.org/energybike.html) with a Teacher Resource Guide that “provides activities and lesson plans that are correlated to Ohio’s Academic Standards for the following: Measurement; Patterns, Functions and Algebra; Data Analysis and Probability; Number, Number Sense and Operations; Mathematical Processes; Physical Sciences; Science and Technology; Scientific Inquiry; Scientific Ways of Knowing; Science and Technology and Earth and Space Stations. (http://www.ohioenergy.org/Solar%20Curriculum/2Introduction.pdf)
Themes: There are 4 public rooms/areas inside LSEC devoted to hands on High Energy Physics activities based on these themes: Accelerators, Detectors, Methods (how data is analyzed) and Ideas.
The kids really get a kick out of an Accelerator room activity in which they hand crank a bike wheel to faster and faster rpms in order to light up “quarks” attached to the rotating wheel.
Perhaps the challenge is this: Design a hands-on activity incorporating both alternatively generated power and human generated power to complement the above 4 themes.
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